ISIS has recruited 400 children in Syria since January - report

At least 400 children have been recruited in Syria by Islamic State militants over the past three months. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the so-called 'Cubs of the Caliphate' have received military and religious training.

The monitoring group
said that children under 18 have been recruited near schools,
mosques and other public areas. It also added that the children
are taught being to fire live ammunition, fight in battles and
drive in the training camps.

Sometimes militants use them as spies or guards. They also
welcome children with birth defects into their ranks. The Islamic
State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) encourages parents to send kids to the
training camps, and also recruits them directly – often luring
them with money or other benefits.

The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdulrahman, explained what
could be behind their actions.

“They use children because it is easy to brainwash them. They
can build these children into what they want, they stop them from
going to school and send them to IS schools instead,”
Abdulrahman said.

He added that another reason why the group may have turned its
attention to children is the difficulties it has faced with
recruiting adults since the beginning of the year, as only 120
people have joined the ranks of the Islamic State.

Last year, the Syrian Human Rights Committee reported that ISIS
recruited between 200 and 300 children every month and had
started junior jihadi training to cover losses from recent
clashes. Some of them could have taken part in the battles in the
Syrian city of Kobani.

ISIS has also released videos showing children witnessing or
participating in some of the killings.

Earlier this month, one such boy appeared in a video while
shooting dead an Israeli Arab after ISIS accused him of spying.

A source in the French police said the boy could be the
half-brother of Mohamed Merah, who back in 2012 killed three
Jewish children, three soldiers, and a rabbi in Toulouse.

Islamic State militants currently control vast territories in
Iraq and Syria and operate in other unstable regions of the
Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, including the Sinai
Peninsula. Last June, the jihadists declared the captured areas a
new Islamic State – a caliphate. Their leader, Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, proclaimed himself a caliph and urged other radical
Sunni groups to pledge their allegiance.

ISIS persecutes people across sects and ethnicities who do not
adhere to its ultra-hardline doctrine. Earlier this year, the
group beheaded 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians.

Islamic State affiliated groups operate in North Africa, Yemen,
Pakistan, and Afghanistan.